In our current digital age, data is king. Businesses of all sizes are increasingly looking to monetize user data in order to power their products and services. However, the way in which these businesses go about extracting value from data often lacks fairness and transparency. Take Facebook, for example. The social media giant has come under fire in recent years for its business model, which is based on monetizing user data without giving anything back to the users themselves. This was most recently highlighted with the company’s rebranding to “Meta”, which signifies its concerning foray into the metaverse industry. Google is another high-profile example of a company that has faced criticism for its monetization of user data. The search giant has been embroiled in a number of antitrust cases in Europe, with regulators accusing the company of abusing its dominant market position to prioritize its own products and services over those of its competitors. Thankfully, blockchain technology offers a potential solution to this issue. Blockchain is a distributed database that allows for the creation of digital ownership and fair distribution of wealth through trustless and permissionless protocols. This makes it an ideal technology for enabling a more equitable data monetization model. Enabling True Digital Ownership One company that is taking advantage of blockchain to enable true digital ownership is Next Earth. Ne...
